CALL FOR PARTICIPATION PATAT 2006 The 6th International Conference on the Practice and Theory of Automated Timetabling http://patat06.muni.cz Wednesday, 30th August - Friday, 1st September 2006 organized by the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University Hotel International Brno Czech Republic ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Late Registration Deadline: August 18th, 2006 Conference proceedings available at http://patat06.muni.cz/doc/PATAT_2006_Proceedings.pdf ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This conference is the sixth in a series of conferences that serve as a forum for an international community of researchers, practitioners and vendors on all aspects of computer-aided timetable generation. For more information about the series of conferences see http://www.asap.cs.nott.ac.uk/patat/patat-index.shtml The themes of the conference include (but are not limited to): o Educational Timetabling o Transport Timetabling o Employee Timetabling and Rostering o Sports Timetabling o Complexity Issues o Distributed Timetabling Systems o Experiences o Implementations o Commercial Packages o Interactive vs Batch Timetabling o Timetable Updating o Data Models and Data Formats o Relationship with Other Scheduling Problems o Timetabling Research Areas, including: Constraint-Based Methods Evolutionary Computation Artificial Intelligence Graph Colouring Expert Systems Heuristic Search Knowledge Based Systems Operational Research Simulated Annealing Local Search Mathematical Programming Soft Computing Tabu Search Meta-Heuristics Hyper-Heuristics Very Large Neighborhood Search Ant Colony Methods Hybrid Methods Multi-Criteria Decision Making Fuzzy Reasoning Combinatorial Optimisation The Featured Keynote Speakers for this conference are: Barry McCollum (Queen's University and eventMAP Ltd., UK) Michel Gendreau (Centre de Recheche sur les Transports, Montreal, Canada) James Orlin (MIT, USA) Andrea Schaerf (Universita di Udine, Italy) Research Presentations & Proceedings: Seventy research presentations are planned, encompassing the broad range of issues in timetabling. The conference proceedings with all plenary presentations, full papers, extended abstracts, and system demonstrations is available at http://patat06.muni.cz/doc/PATAT_2006_Proceedings.pdf . The preliminary conference programme is published at http://patat06.muni.cz/schedule.html . Registration Fees: Registration fees include attandence at all presentations (invited talks, full papers, extended abstracts, system demonstrations), ISBN proceedings available during the conference, LNCS proceedings of selected papers published after the conference, 3 lunches (Wednesday-Friday), coffee breaks, 2 dinners (Wednesday and Thursday), city tour on Tuesday evening, and the use of conference facilities (wireless connection). The registration fees are: Regular: 14,800 CZK early registration 16,000 CZK late registration 18,000 CZK on-site registration First 50 students: 7,500 CZK early registration 8,500 CZK late registration 9,900 CZK on-site registration Remaining students: 9,750 CZK early registration 10,750 CZK late registration 12,150 CZK on-site registration Saturday trip: 950 CZK Accompanying person: 2,800 CZK First 50 registered students receive 2,250 CZK support from PATAT conference. Please register through the conference web site http://patat06.muni.cz/online/registration/ LATE REGISTRATION ENDS AUGUST 18, 2006 Saturday trip: The optional Saturday trip is an excellent opportunity to interact with other conference attendees in an informal atmosphere. We will visit the Moravian Karst region, which is very close to Brno. We have planned an excursion to the Punkva caves where you will enjoy a trip by motorboat on an underground river, the Punkva. We will also see the Macocha abyss, the deepest open abyss in Central Europe. Next we will move to the brewery at Cerna Hora where we will have lunch. We conclude our trip with a tour of the brewery which is one of the oldest breweries in Moravia and Bohemia. Accommodation: PATAT 2006 will be held at the the Hotel International. A block of rooms at the following discounted rates is being held for PATAT 2006: Standard Single Room (1 person): 2250 CZK Executive Single (1 person): 2550 CZK Standard Double Room (2 persons): 2760 CZK Executive Double (2 persons): 3420 CZK A block of rooms at the following rates is being held for PATAT 2006 at the Student Hostel Astorka with the following rates (rates are on a per person basis regardless of whether one or two people occupy a double room): Nightly Rate per Person (double room): 580 CZK Nightly Rate per Person (3 bed room): 440 CZK Student Nightly Rate per Person (double room): 290 CZK Student Nightly Rate per Person (3 bed room): 220 CZK Detail information on how to book accommodation can be found at http://patat06.muni.cz/accommodation.html ROOMS ARE LIMITED SO EARLY RESERVATION IS ENCOURAGED Programme Committee: Edmund Burke (co-chair) University of Nottingham, UK Hana Rudova (co-chair) Masaryk University, Czech Republic Hesham Alfares King Fahd University, Saudi Arabia Viktor Bardadym Noveon Inc., Belgium James Bean University of Michigan, USA Peter Brucker University of Osnabrück, Germany Michael Carter University of Toronto, Canada Peter Cowling University of Bradford, UK Patrick De Causmaecker KaHo St.-Lieven, Gent, Belgium Kathryn Dowsland Gower Optimal Algorithms Ltd. UK Andreas Drexl University of Kiel, Germany Wilhelm Erben FH Konstanz - University of Applied Sciences, Germany Jacques A. Ferland University of Montreal, Canada Michel Gendreau Centre de Recherche sur les Transports, Montréal, Canada Alain Hertz Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada Jeffrey Kingston University of Sydney, Australia Raymond Kwan University of Leeds, UK Gilbert Laporte Université de Montréal, Canada Vahid Lotfi University of Michigan-Flint, USA Amnon Meisels Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel Thiruthlall Nepal Durban Institute of Technology, South Africa Jim Newall eventMAP Ltd, UK Ben Paechter Napier University, Edinburgh, UK Gilles Pesant Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada Sanja Petrovic University of Nottingham, UK Jean-Yves Potvin Université de Montréal, Canada Rong Qu University of Nottingham, UK Andrea Schaerf Universita di Udine, Italy Jan Schreuder University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands Jonathan Thompson Cardiff University, UK Paolo Toth University of Bologna, Italy Michael Trick Carnegie Mellon University, USA Greet Vanden Berghe KaHo St.-Lieven, Belgium Stefan Voss University of Hamburg, Germany Dominique de Werra EPF-Lausanne, Switzerland George White University of Ottawa, Canada Michael Wright Lancaster University, UK Jay Yellen Rollins College, USA About the Venue: Brno is the Czech Republic's second largest city. It lies in the middle of South Moravia and is a thriving centre of commerce and culture. The city has a rich history and a wide variety of architectural styles dating back almost a thousand years. Lying right at the heart of Europe, Brno is well placed to attract visitors from around the world. The city is a major trade fair centre, a grand prix motorcycle venue, and is the home of six universities and a number of research institutes. The conference will be held at the Hotel International (which is a member of the Best Western Premier network of hotels). The hotel is located in a pleasant area of the city between the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul and the 13th century Spilberk fortress. Parks surrounding the fortress and cathedral provide a very convenient and quiet walking area. Adjacent areas of the old city offer excellent opportunities for shopping and a wide range of restaurants, pubs, and bars. The conference hotel is reasonably priced and includes excellent conference facilities. Brno has a growing international airport. There are regular train and bus connections to large international airports at Prague and Vienna (Austria). Detailed travel instructions can be found at http://patat06.muni.cz/travel.html You can find more information about Brno at http://www.brno.cz/ For more information, contact info@patat06.muni.cz Conference Organisers are: Edmund Burke Automated Scheduling, Optimisation and Planning Research Group School of Computer Science and Information Technology University of Nottingham University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD United Kingdom e-mail: ekb@cs.nott.ac.uk and Hana Rudova Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University Botanicka 68a Brno 602 00 Czech Republic e-mail: hanka@fi.muni.cz PATAT 2006 WEB SITE Full updated information is always available from http://patat06.muni.cz